Troubled Crescent Motel in Buena Park ordered closed

BUENA PARK – Saying the owner has had his chance to clean up his building, the City Council voted Tuesday night to strip the Crescent Motel of its operating permit.

The 4-0 vote – Mayor Jim Dow was on vacation – brought applause from residents who live in the south Buena Park neighborhood near the motel. For months they had pleaded with city officials to shut it down, saying crime at the budget motel had spilled into their neighborhood.

The council's vote was the latest in a back-and-forth between the city and motel owner Loc Van Nguyen.

Nguyen's attorney, Steve Sheldon, said Nguyen will not close the motel willingly.

The next step: "Unfortunately, it's likely to be litigation," Sheldon said.

The council pulled the permit on the motel "without giving (Nguyen) a chance to fix it," Sheldon said. "It's un-American."

City officials didn't see it that way. They said that Nguyen went back on a pledge to fix up the motel at Crescent Avenue and Beach Boulevard and bring it to an AAA two-diamond rating. In May, the council voted to have Nguyen sign a list of conditions to keep operating and deposit $750,000 in an escrow account to help pay for renovations. That never happened, leading to Tuesday's action to pull the business's permit.

For months, city officials have demanded changes at the Beach Boulevard motel because, they said, it has been plagued with crime and code violations and was a frequent source of police calls.

"(Nguyen) did not agree to sign the contract," Sheldon told the council. "We offered a different amount of money, a different contract." Sheldon added that the city's demands "could have bankrupted the motel."

Over the past several months, Sheldon argued, Nguyen has made $170,000 in upgrades to the motel, including a recent $30,000 purchase of furniture from the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.

Several of Nguyen's employees and current guests of the Crescent Motel spoke before the council on Nguyen's behalf.

Wally Recio said he and his wife, Elva, have stayed at the motel recently while they wait for escrow to close on their new Anaheim home.

"I wouldn't stay in a place of ill repute. In the time we've stayed there, we've felt very, very safe," Recio said.

Several residents of a nearby neighborhood, however, wanted the city to come down hard on Nguyen.

Councilman Fred Smith lives down the road from the motel and told the audience he passes it several times a day.

"Has there been a big change? Yes. Is it enough? No," he said. "I don't care how much paint you put on it, the clientele they have there is not what we want in Buena Park."

The city's next move is unclear, though city officials said they hope they could come to some sort of agreement with Nguyen. They conceded that it appears more and more likely the standoff's solution will come from a Superior Court bench.